Best of the Bunch: The Trials – Israel

Through our Best of the Bunch series, we gave a recap on the Eurovision entries from 2006 to 2015 and gave you the opportunity to choose your Best of the Bunch. As you may remember, the current Best of the Bunch winners were put into our ‘Ultimate Eurovision’ but it’s time to see which of the latest three entries have remained as your favourites! In our Best of the Bunch: The Trials series, we are going to recap the entries from a certain nation starting with 2016 and continuing through to the latest Eurovision season of 2018. Your job is to simply enjoy the music, and vote for your Best of the Bunch winner!

Today we’re taking a closer look at Israel, a nation that has been present at the contest for many years, and has had varying levels of success over the years. In recent years however, Israel has been fairly successful, albeit after a bit of a non-qualification streak. Today we will be recapping the latest three entries from the nation and it will be up to you to decide which is your Best of the Bunch!

Israel 2016

We’re starting our journey today in 2016, and after the refreshed efforts from Israel the previous year, which landed them in the Top 10 for the first time since 2008, the pressure was on to repeat or improve on that result. Hovi Star was selected to represent the nation with the song Made of Stars, which in true Eurovision form was revamped prior to the contest. The ballad style song had mixed reviews previous to the contest, but with a strong performance at the contest, it was unsurprising to see Israel in the final once again, having qualified in at 7th place. In the final, the song didn’t quite crack the Top 10, but finished in 14th place with 135 points.

Israel 2017

In 2017, Israel pumped up the energy with the song I Feel Alive, which was performed by IMRI. After two years of being a backing artist at Eurovision, IMRI finally gained the opportunity to be the leading man of a song that stylistically was more aligned with Nadav Guedj’s 9th place-getting song Golden Boy. There’s always room for an energetic bop at Eurovision, and again, it was unsurprising to see Israel in the final. From the semi-final, the nation qualified in from 3rd place, as did Nadav Guedj in 2015, so the potential was strong with this one! In the final, unfortunately it didn’t reach the heights as it had in the semi-final, finishing in a disappointing 23rd place with 39 points.

Israel 2018

That leads us to the most recent entry from Israel, and perhaps the most memorable. A national final was once again used to select the artist, however the song came after but with looper artist Netta chosen, her song was bound to be unique. As we know, the song was titled Toy, and it blew up in the Eurovision fandom upon the realisation that the song featured human imitation of chickens clucking! The uniqueness of the song was worked into the stage performance at Eurovision, and the song breezed through to the final at 1st place, and then went on to win Eurovision with 529 points!

So now you’ve seen all three performances, it’s time to vote for your Best of the Bunch!